January 10, 2012

At the end of last week an article popped up on GetReal Hockey called “Hockey Nerds Awesome Evening”. The article by Joe DeTolve told of how he had stopped off at a Goodwill store on his way home and found a vintage wooden stick which he had purchased and it had jumped to the top of his hockey collection.

After reading it I decided to have a click around on Ebay at different Hockey memorabilia so I typed Hockey Cards into the search option and set the list to come up with the highest priced first. To my surprise after getting past the Gretzky’s and the Orr / Howe / Hull vintage cards I found a load of 97/98 Upper Deck Black Diamond cards listed at ridiculous prices. It seemed that specific brand and year had held rookie cards for the likes of Roberto Luongo, David Legwand and the Sedin twins amongst others.

Being on my festive holiday’s meant I was staying with my family where my Hockey card collection was being stored in the loft and although not 100% certain, I was sure I had purchased some of those Black Diamond cards back in the day as most of my collecting was done from the 96-97 season to the 99-00 season. As the Christmas decorations went back up into the loft so the Hockey card collection came down. I must admit I wasn’t sure what I was going to find but the excitement was building up as I went to open the cover of the first hard back binder.

And there it was – staring straight back at me from the inside the 1st plastic sleeve of the binder. It seemed I had broken into a few of those 97/98 Black Diamond packets back in the day as there sat a Roberto Luongo Rookie Card. It wasn’t just the regular Roberto Luongo rookie card either (which was listed on Ebay at roughly £60 or $90) but the 3 Diamond version!

To put the value of this card into context with the regular card I have seen listings of the 3 Diamond version since then on Ebay for up to roughly £250 or $400!

Not wanting to get too excited I continued to flick through my collection and also came across both Sedin rookie cards – the regular cards and the David Legwand one as well. It seemed I also had the 3 Diamond Curtis Joseph , Sergei Federov Double Diamond and Sergei Samsonov Double Diamond Premium Cut cards.

Not bad from what I remember to be only a handful of packets from that series bought due to the price of them at the time. I remembered them as being very beautiful looking cards and really well made which they certainly are. They were also still in Mint condition as I had the sense the put them in individual plastic sleeves inside the plastic wallet 9 card holders that sat inside the hard backed collectors binders you could get. I had also collected a lot of Detroit RedWings cards all those years ago which is where my love of the team started. Because of this I had quite a lot of Steve Yzerman cards and inserts. Unsure of what the value of many of these were I needed to find a way to look this up.

I remembered owning a couple of copies of Becketts monthly back in about 97/98 but would have no idea if A) I still had them and B) if I did, where they would be so I googled them to see if they were now online. I did indeed find them but found that I would need to sign up and pay a fee to look at what they were listing the cards as. Instead, I managed to find a website that seemed to be selling a lot of cards from the same era and had listings of prices for most of the sets I had collected. I decided to use this site and Ebay and make a listing of what my collection consisted of and what the value of it could be.

Starting with those Steve Yzerman cards I had acquired a lot of low value insert cards ranging roughly from £3-£8 or $4-$9 as well as basic cards from many sets. There was 40 cards in total and the value I calculated for them was around £65 or $100.

I’d managed to collect around 20 odd Wayne Gretzky cards as well, similar to the Yzerman cards there was a mix of base set cards and low value inserts that came to a value of around £35 or $55.

I’d completed the full set of 96/97 Pinncale trading cards which value is roughly £30 or $50, the only base set I had in full and I also had the Blade Runners insert set from 96/97 Skybox Impact range in full (25 Cards) that I worked out to be worth around £25 or $45.

Suddenly all this was adding up to a nice amount of money. Money that could be used towards a trip of a lifetime I have wanted to take for as long as I can remember over to Toronto for a visit around the Hall of Fame and to take in some NHL and AHL action. With talk of the Winter Classic being held in Detroit next year as well the idea of a dream trip was starting to form in my head.

The decision was made and I have started to list some of the cards on Ebay. Although the decision to sell these cards wasn’t an easy one to take I know I am doing it for the right reason. The collection has been hidden away for a few years now and although I would love to keep it and have it on display at home I just don’t have anywhere to do this and if someone can get enjoyment out of the cards I’d rather pass them on. It also gives me chance to aim at completing my trip of a lifetime to see some NHL action over in Canada or the US. Having previously had a taste of it when the LA Kings and Anaheim Ducks visited London in the NHL Premiere it is something I have wanted to experience again and this is the opportunity.

If you are interested in looking at any of the cards available please visit